


Really, unfortunate

by cringykitties



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Borderline Personality Disorder, Canon Compliant, Childhood Memories, Depressed Keith (Voltron), Everything is fine at the end though!, I wish I could convey the emotions more but... it's hard, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Keith (Voltron) Has BPD, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Literally a short summary of Keith's life, Suicide Attempt, This is actually a vent fic, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, also it isn't graphic!, no one is dead though, only implied but still here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 19:09:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14408664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cringykitties/pseuds/cringykitties
Summary: Simple: Keith's life has been hell from start to finish. Maybe life didn't want him after all. But to know that, you will have to read it until the end.





	Really, unfortunate

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! This is actually my first fanfiction, if I don't really count the ones from middle school..... And technically it's my first fanfiction posted on an English platform, so yeah, I guess I can count it as my first.
> 
> It was supposed to be a vent fic, it's based on my experience with it, so honestly, I didn't mind much about how well it was written... I still hope the whole makes sense, I tried to let it be kind of... very simple so people could just picture things on their own? Maybe that's not how you actually do it but hey, feel free to tell me that in the comments! Also feel free to tell me if anything bothered you, or if you liked it!
> 
> Hope you guys still enjoy it!

It all started several years ago, far before getting in space and fighting aliens in giant robotic lions.

When he was a kid, Keith liked to believe he had a mother. He never met her though, and his father never really talked about her, no matter how much he asked. He needed to know, but he never had the answer he needed. It was fine. He had his father, and Keith loved his father.

Yet he too disappeared one day, almost like he was never there. He still doesn’t know where he went, but he never saw him again, aside from that card, not even send for his birthday or any celebration of some sort, with a wild landscape on a side and not even a note aside from « Dad » written in black on the too empty postcard. He cried that day. He was thirteen years old, and still in the orphanage after _another_ foster family decided he was too much, too hard to take care of. He doesn’t remember why he did. Was it of anger, despair, happiness? It seems so far, so distant, like it never happened, a little bit like the fact he once had probably a normal family with two parents who probably cherished him, even if he often doubts it was the case.

Foster families were not all good experiences. He remembers being excited the first time one of the caretakers at the orphanage told him he was going to have a new family. They were kind people, but eventually the couple and family broke apart for financial reasons, like most couples these days it seems, revealing such a dark side on the faces he first thought were going to be finally what he could call a family. Keith doesn’t remember clearly what the next foster families were, there were too much. He still doesn’t know what they expected of him, but probably not enough to be loved. Oh, he did have good moments; but they all seem so blurry on the contrary of the bad ones.

He doesn’t really remember when it started, but he perfectly knew how awful he felt when it did. He used to have to do his best, and when these things hit you up, there’s no way it all can work like before. Yet, he still had to do his best, to be perfect and work himself out until exhaustion. He doesn’t know if it’s a consequence of all his childhood and teenage years, or perhaps the neglect of his biological parents, the abuse from the others? He just developed several mental complications to make his life even harder than it was before. He was probably around sixteen, after he had to change of school _again_ , had to adapt to a new foster family he would probably leave _again_. He just felt lifeless. He would stare on the ceiling of his new room with that weird pain he could feel deep down in his brain, melting all his senses and thoughts, not knowing what he could do to stop it. It was too much. _He_ was too much.

_He needed to breath._

Even if he had sometimes impulsive burst of anger at his foster parents, he wasn’t a troublesome child. If he did everything he was asked, then everything would be okay. Everyone would be happy, and everything would continue normally. Maybe he would even have a future. But one day, not that he really remembers why he had enough, and he ran away. It was probably his foster family, or maybe himself, that made him go so far. Oh, he was quickly found anyway, but it was enough to be back at the orphanage, **again**. But since then, he couldn’t act like before. He started being more violent, more reckless, but also so much more horrible towards himself. It started slowly, but it became out of control quickly.

Keith had a good period when he met Takashi Shirogane. They quickly became friends, the only person he felt he could ever call a friend after all these years, and he felt liberated. Shiro, he called him, was a kind soul, and a very attentive ear, even if sometimes somewhat clueless, and he was the first person Keith ever told about how he felt, what he went through, and how bad he was at managing his emotions. He told him too about his habits, and about how he took care of himself… or rather the lack thereof. Shiro, being the kind and supportive friend, helped him to get better. He said Keith could always come to see him if he needed him. He taught Keith some new ways to manage his emotion (his favorite way was exercising, he loved to run for kilometers until his legs were numb and his breathing erratic). It wasn’t perfect, but it did the trick. He entered the Galaxy Garrison, following Shiro in his footsteps. He didn’t exactly have a dream, nor a vocation, but thus to the recommendation of Shiro, he decided to give it a try. Honestly, he didn’t have much to lose. Keith kept telling himself he could always run away again, live on the run, or even just leave. And it was far better than expected. He even started finding a reason to continue after all. It wasn’t perfect, but everything worked itself out, slowly.

It was until Takashi Shirogane went missing in a mission on Kerberos, along with his two other crew members. It was more than a shock, for Keith who had based somehow his existence on his friend and was severely lost without him. He saw himself walking next to him, as his right hand eventually. He hoped they would stay together forever, at long last, a friend forever. But it started being out of control again. He was impulsive again. He barely took care of himself, and everything Shiro taught him was as if it never existed. The only thing that remained was _“Patience yields focus”_ , something the two of them would often say. Patience, however, wasn’t his thing, and with his loss, he barely managed it. A month after Shiro was gone, he was expelled of the Galaxy Garrison for that time he yelled a death threat to a professor. Since then, he lived on the run, in the street in the town the nearest at first, before finally settling down in an abandoned shack in the desert. His only thought was finding Shiro, day and night, and he would do anything to find him again. That was the only thing that maintained him alive. He thought that if he hadn’t meet Shiro, he would probably have _left_ , and he was the best thing that happened to him in the 18 years of his life. But well, he kind of already knew life was a shithell anyway, after all he went through, so he wasn’t surprised.

His period in the desert was not the worse. Honestly, he has been through so much in his childhood, with the foster families, the stress, and then the Galaxy Garrison and his brain, it was kind of a relief to be finally alone and left in peace. Or so he thought at first. Because hell, living by yourself when you have very complicated relationships with others, basically going full blast from loving someone to hating them, while wanting to bite everyone’s head off because of his anger issues and other deep rooted mentalities – Shiro being the only exception, and maybe the concierge of his dormitory at the Garrison, was so much easier to live with. He kind of liked it at first, despite the desert’s heat really being an ordeal. He just appreciated the silence of his situation.

That was only at first, and on the good days though.

You see, when Shiro was gone, meaning Keith’s pillar, the only thing he helped him move on, disappeared, well, Keith became an unstable mess. He already had those days before meeting Shiro, but now they feel so much worse. Basically, because he’s by himself. Not to say he was already treated very well in his foster families and at the foster care but… he, most of the time, actually had his necessities ready for him. Now, he had to do all this by himself, but the hardest, was having the strength to wake up on these mornings. At the foster care and in his foster families, he didn’t really that much choice, nor did he at the Garrison – even if it was much easier, since Shiro was very motivating, he used to wake up every day just for him. Now, he was alone with his thoughts, and it possibly was the hardest from all his life, after meeting Shiro. He needed him to function, and he was there anymore. Keith would stay hours on the couch, without even being able to move to eat something. His mind kept telling him he had to get up, he had to search Shiro, Shiro, Shiro – but God, he was miserable. It was worse than the separation anxiety. Worse than the fear of abandonment. Being actually abandoned, even if he knew it wasn’t Shiro’s fault, that it wasn’t because of his either… it was hurtful. His mind screamed, his heart screamed, his body was... like a burden. Living was a burden without Shiro. Sometimes, he would get up and get a walk around in the desert, trying to find cues with his messy mind, barely able to process informations. Sometimes he didn’t at all. He is glad nobody was with him at the time, seeing what a mess he had become. Wearing long sleeves in the heat of the desert would have been unbearable.

But yeah, there were good days too, fortunately.

When he found Shiro though, oh God, it was a **relief**. It’s like he could see again, the future was back, he could actually live again. Along with him, he met three other Galaxy Garrison students: Lance, the loud and obnoxious one, Pidge, the small and smart one, and Hunk, the big and sweet one. And shortly after that, he took off for space in a Blue Lion, and ended up in a castle where resided (actually slept) two aliens whom were Allura, princess of Altea, and her supervisor, Coran.  
Living with five new persons he never talked to, though he probably had a sigh of Lance, Hunk and Pidge back at the Garrison, was quite complicated at first. Keith didn’t mind though, since he had Shiro back. Shiro was back. That was all he needed, honestly. He finally found some stability back, despite the weirdness of their situation, and becoming a paladin of Voltron in an intergalactic war.

It wasn’t always pretty. Oh man, sometimes being in space, at war, with all its implications really didn’t make his life easier to deal with, along with his thoughts, constantly pushing him above the cliff, in the literal sense of the term. He tried once. It was after an near-death experience, where they lost Pidge and Shiro for a few hours. They were found together on the same planet, but severely wounded, in a life threatening condition, and they had to stay in the pods for a few days. Keith snapped that day. He felt like it was his fault, he blamed everything on himself, couldn’t ease the pain to see Shiro in such a pitiful state without being able to help more. He needed to do more. He had to do more. He was really useless, wasn’t he?

It was Lance that found him. It wasn’t pretty. But bless Lance, he already knew how to deal with the situation, thanks to someone in his family, probably his aunt, but Keith wasn’t sure, he wasn’t sure of anything, his mind was weak, he was weak, he needed peace, he needed silence. He was there for Keith. Keith wasn’t okay with that, but it’s not like he had much choice anyway. He felt asleep from the stress of the day.

Keith had Shiro though, and the others. He wasn’t always sure he would make it, every day was uncertain, full of dread, and there’s days he would rather be gone, he hated everything, everyone, himself. But that’s not like the others would let him go anyway.

For now, he’s just staying around.

**Author's Note:**

> PS: in case you didn't completely get it, Shiro is Keith's favorite person. If you are not familiar with the term, it is the person one is emotionally dependent on, like some sort of life line, as their whole mood/life depends on them. The favorite person somehow, unwillingly, has the person's life in their hands because of the BPD. (I hope that was clear enough)
> 
> Also, I didn't go until season 5... I stopped before Shiro was gone again!


End file.
